"Perhaps Sowell’s joylessness stems from the fact that his main idea is the hatred of ideas. It is one thing to be an intellectual and love ideas: why else spend so much time reading and thinking about them? When I come across a bad idea, I disagree with it and, as I am doing here, I try to expose its silliness. But I value bad ideas well enough to take them seriously. I write about Thomas Sowell because I recognize in him a fellow intellectual. But it is by no means clear that Sowell recognizes himself as one. He does from time to time note the existence of “conservative and neo-conservative intellectuals” who offer “an alternative vision” to the dominant ideology and whose influence “no longer negligible” in the media. But then Sowell goes on to write as if the only talking heads on television belong to Bertrand Russell and Noam Chomsky. Safely back to his thesis that intellectuals are always loathsome meddlers who hate capitalism, rationalize evil, and get everything wrong, he is free to quote Eric Hoffer, Paul Johnson, and all like-thinking writers who trod this ground before him."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Academics from the United StatesPhilosophers from the United StatesEducators from the United StatesPeople from North CarolinaEconomists from the United States
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Alan Wolfe, "The Joyless Mind", The New Republic (February 9, 2010)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Sowell
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Thomas Sowell
107 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Thomas Sowell →
Related Quotes
"Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it."
"Too many Republicans treat English as a second language, with Beltway lingo being their native tongue."
"The most fundamental fact about the ideas of the political left is that they do not work. Therefore we should not be …"
"If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that wou…"
"Ideas are everywhere, but knowledge is rare."
"Ideas, as the raw material from which knowledge is produced, exist in superabundance, but that makes the production o…"
"Civilization is an enormous device for economizing on knowledge."
"Knowledge may be enjoyed as a speculative diversion, but it is needed for decision making."
"It is unnecessary to attempt any general rule as to where the overall balance lies in comparing the respective costs …"
"What the welfare system and other kinds of governmental programs are doing is paying people to fail. In so far as the…"